Little monkey
Living in a cage.. of ribs
It’s a shadowy little thing
Blue from screaming.. Its body
a mere outline, with scratches of ink
It lives there
Its arms outstretched
ahead, and above its head
Every muscle tense
In perpetual urgency..
An urgent panic and dread
It calls, but not sure who can hear
who will come after all, with a hug tactile
It’s standing there, both urgently present and frozen
Oh, it’s been standing there a while
It’s not easy to look its way
Its desperation is too loud
The more I pass it by, the more
It becomes a shadowy, inky shroud
It may not knock on the cage walls, but it screams
towards my throat.. And its arms- they never rest
It’s tiny, it’s blue.. It’s ancient, it’s sentient
And it lives inside my breast
This morning, when
in a moment of softness
I chose to look its way
Little monkey’s eyes widened
And frenzied arms
Grasped at whatever they may
Expecting things to change any moment
It grasped and clung so hard
My soft embrace like a precious few drops
Of water in a land so parched
Not enough, not enough,
no definitely didn’t feel enough
A thirst so large, the drops so few
But not something it would let go of
As I smiled at it and touched it
It climbed jerkily up and up
Through the tunnel of my throat
Around my jaw, its little body cupped
It clasped and slipped, and clasped again
All its paws in a frenzy to hold on
This little monkey holding, like the branch
Of a tree, my poor jaw bone
I’m here, I’m here
I’m not going anywhere
I smiled, and said without words
Though the longer it stayed there clinging,
I wondered, if it will ever be enough
It climbed some more, hopping on to my nose
And now it turned, for the first time, away from me
Looking outward in wonder, as if out through a window
And I noticed its little dress there suddenly
I noticed each little hair on its body,
its eyes, its dress, its posture
It was fully here. And I was seeing it
A far cry from the inky prisoner
With a sense of happy play and exploration
It hopped off! From my nose onto the wide world
I watched in great and pleasant surprise
The transformation that had occurred
I turned once more inward and saw
The room the monkey had lived so long
Now lit and warm, with a big window
A place it can call home
